Kids Fool Obesity Researchers, Put Pedometers on Dogs

The Health Blog was impressed by the cleverness of some 11- and 12-year-old obese children in east London, who were participating in an exercise research study.

The kids were supposed to be wearing pedometers to measure the number of steps they were taking each day. But some of those in the study got the bright idea to clip the pedometers to the collars of their pet dogs, upping the distance the youngsters appeared to be moving each day, according to the BBC.

So it goes in conducting research studies in the real world. Studies that use so-called self-report measures, in which individuals have to recall and record their own actions or attitudes, have to be looked at with some skepticism because they depend on participants’ ability or willingness to report accurately.

In research on obesity and weight loss, it’s long been known that individuals often underreport what foods or how many calories they have eaten during the day, or how much exercise they’ve engaged in.

So researchers have tried to come up with better measures to ensure accurate findings, such as by asking participants to weigh out their food on a scale. For physical activity, pedometers are supposed to be another way to improve accuracy.

The British researchers told the BBC that it isn’t the first time that people have tried to fiddle with the pedometers. Unfortunately, once the pedometers were adjusted to take into account the help from pets, the boys walked or ran only 12,620 steps a day, compared with the recommended level of 15,000 steps. The girls took 10,150 steps daily, versus the recommended 12,000 steps.